At the present time the state of the prior art has been that vending machines have had relatively simple locks, using keys. The industry has not desired to place heavy locks on the machines, since, if they were heavily locked, thieves could break in by damaging the cabinet which is of light sheet metal to a damage extent of approximately two or three hundred dollars.
The industry has preferred to either mount audible alarms or more often to simply allow them to break in since the damaging break-ins are much less frequent than unauthorized lock opening by a person using a key illegally or a lock-picker.
Break-ins of the damaging type involve noise and a chance of getting caught. Thieves have become skillfull at getting lock picking keys and even at getting keys to duplicate the proper keys for a lock.
My solution to this problem is to provide a radio controlled extra lock which can be unlocked by a proper person having a transmittal signal unit.
To open a door, an authorized person needs a transmitting unit and a proper key.
An advantage to the machine owner of a machine having the auxiliary lock of this invention is that the thief does not know that there is an auxiliary device locking the door. He sees only a standard keyhole.
An advantage of my invention is to provide an operator with the ease of only needing to simply close the door, twist the key for locking, and remove the key, without any special manipulation of the transmitter, because the locking of a primary lock will have moved its latch out of a position for holding the radio-lock solenoid dead-bolt in unbolting position so that the dead-bolt moves by its own spring into a position for dead-bolting the latch to keep the latch from moving. In brief, the advantage is that at a time after closing the door, the solenoid dead-bolt need not be reset. It is automatically reset into dead bolting position by the movement of the latch in response to the twisting of the key for locking.
This invention is important for the locking of both doors and gates, and as mounted on containers of many kinds, vending machines, shipping containers, houses, buildings, vehicles, or fenced areas.